32
NO!!!!!
Get out. Get out now. As in, do not train there even one more time.
There is always the chance of being injured in any martial art. That's true of any active sport, of course--but "combat sports" have an intention of everyone getting hit, kicked, etc. The requirement for safety is therefore paramount. You need to train safely if you are going to be ...
16
Yes, but... (and it's a big "but")
Two things stimulate bone density:
Damage
Generally our biological systems are set up so that if something is damaged, cells lay down more, tougher material since clearly what we had before wasn't quite tough enough. In other tissues, this forms as scar tissue which can reduce your mobility, however bone just gives ...
11
You're answering your own question here.
In sparring they can't go light and hit with momentum and throw dangerous moves.
I have seen another guy get an elbow to on the back of his neck and haven't seen him in weeks
I got a very strong hook that gave me a huge black eye (after asking for them to go lighter).
Last week during a seminar in knee drills a guy ...
11
A common precaution is to wear wrestling headgear, which is designed to protect the ears, while practicing. Cauliflower ear is caused by impacts or rubbing on the ear. Headgear will reduce both of these.
9
I clacked my teeth together during a takedown and ended up with a tiny chip of one of my front teeth. Now I never get on the mats without a mouthguard.
If you have trouble breathing with a normal mouthguard, ask your dentist for the kind of guard meant to prevent damage if you grind your teeth when you sleep. It's a little thinner and harder, and won't be ...
9
In a case where you have to face more than one opponent, in a case where putting someone into submission is not enough to end the fight:
If you're more comfortable with the idea of using submissions, then you can train for that: arts/skills such as Chin-Na, some schools of jujitsu, hapkido, aikido... all teach joint locks that let you control one opponent ...
9
Yes, playing judo introduces the risk of brain injury.
Judo is a contact sport. Competitive judo is a very contact sport. If you play rough and don't take ukemi properly, you risk concussion. The risk is not as great as in boxing or striking arts. The risk is manageable for nearly all trainees, especially people who don't compete at the elite levels or who ...
9
Yes, hitting objects does make your bones more solid.
Bones are primarily made up of two parts, and outer layer and an inner layer.
The outer is a thin layer of compact bone (cortical bone). The inner layer is far less compact and is known as spongy or cancellous bone.
The thin layer provides up to 80% of the strength of the bone despite covering a much ...
8
Virtually all of the martial arts use the hands in some way. Even Taekwondo, which uses mostly kicks during sparring, will use the hands to block and punch. Whereas, grappling arts use the hands to grab onto the gi or wrists or whatever. It's not uncommon in Brazilian Jiujitsu or Judo to sprain your pinky and ring fingers due to the fact that your grip ...
8
Drills are meant to teach your muscles to perform a technique properly. I would pad the hell out of the recipient before I let another student hit him/her full-force. It's not about inflicting damage, it's about learning how to do something properly and with force. That's how I do it anyway. There's no sense in punching the hell out of each other each time. ...
8
There's two goals here, and they don't necessarily overlap.
Less harmful techniques
The techniques less likely to result in serious injury or death for your opponent(s) are to restrain them. Unfortunately, restraining them requires tying up part of your body to do so - limiting your mobility and your ability to defend yourself against others.
These ...
8
An analysis of the literature in 2006 presented data for a number of team and individual contact sports.
Concussions in boxing were identified at a rate of 0.8/10 rounds (for pros) or 7.9/1000 man-minutes (amateur). So in a pro bout you can expect one guy or the other to be concussed on average, and one guy or the other to be concussed per hour on average ...
8
Parlor tricks
Just about all of the demonstrations along these lines you will see are set up in such a way that the force is not applied the way you think.
Breaking sticks over back? Notice that the striking point is the middle of the stick, not towards the tip. Breaking a spear with the neck? The spear tip goes into the suprasternal notch and the ...
7
Despite ice's enduring popularity and former recommendations for its use in RICE (rest, ice, compression, elevation) treatment, ice is no longer recommended for reducing inflammation or bruising. Gabe Mirkin, MD, who first coined the RICE mnemonic, explains on his blog dated Sept 2015 that ice delays recovery from injury.
PhysicalTherapyWeb tells a similar ...
7
Fighting disciplines (such as Muay Thai, boxing etc.) Can cause multiple eye traumas. If your vision becomes blurry or if the pain doesn't go away you might want to consider consulting a physician.
You can learn more on potential eye injury from blow to the head by reading these articles:
Giovinazzo VJ, Yannuzzi LA, Sorenson JA, Delrowe DJ, Cambell EA. "...
7
First, context. Unless you live in a place where a lot of random fistfights/assaults happen, you're mostly only going to be targeted for a mugging - which is primarily someone wanting to get your belongings - not someone trying to waste time beating or hurting you out the blue.
Second, if they are trying to hurt you, while your "hands are your ...
7
I train in Taekwondo and had a similar problem with my knees (though after a few years of training).
At the time, my doctor diagnosed "chondromalacia patella", which he said was caused by an imbalance in strength of tendons/ligaments across the knee. He prescribed a set of exercises to help balance the strength. These exercises were quite simple and didn't ...
7
Based on this NYTimes article: The frequency of judo deaths in Japan gives 108 deaths since 1983. I will not paraphrase the article but other nationality report no deaths in the last decade or so. I am going to assume that those deaths were directly resulting from judo and not just happened while judo was going on.
Thus your risk of dying are increased if ...
answered Jun 10 '15 at 15:25
Sardathrion - against SE abuse
14.7k3 gold badges45 silver badges119 bronze badges
6
Yes, you have a high risk of getting your nose broken at some stage if you continue with Muay Thai. It isn't Tiddly Winks* - you will eventually get an injury, not just from landed punches but also from kicks.
If you are at all attached to your nose (pun intended) then reconsider Muay Thai. Personally I've had my nose broken half a dozen times or more - ...
6
You should get out.
While it's true that any training there is a spectrum of how hard you may want to go - from the no-contact doing only forms kind of training up to folks like the Dog Brothers using full force stick fighting... the fact is that there's a point after which you are taking injuries and gaining nothing.
And if the school is going harder than ...
6
Blisters can happen initially. I think it happens to everyone new to stick fighting. It's nothing to be too worried about. It probably just means you were over-eager in your training and went too hard or too long. No big deal.
It can also happen if you don't train regularly. Like if you just go once a week, your hand never gets used to it, so you get ...
6
When I was doing Doce Pares Escrima several years ago, I ran into the same problem. I used cloth athletic/medical tape to cover up the blistered areas to give them a chance to heal and at one point, when I found that it was a particular part of the stick rubbing up against my hand (an area where the lacquer had gotten roughed up from impact, actually), I put ...
6
I've had one very minor chip from being seoinage'd (by a girl half my size). Some guys wear mouthguards, especially in newaza (ground fighting), and it's not a bad idea.
6
While certainly some injuries are contraindicated to different movements, it really depends on the specific injury and the extent.
Having a muscle tear is different than multiple fractures with pins in your joints is different than tendon tears is different than cartilage loss - and all of it depends on the joint and your specific movement ability after ...
6
First things first, I think you should see a doctor that could give you a "go". A specialist could tell you if he thinks it would be safe for your knee if you restarted doing martial arts. If the doctor says no, you're putting yourself at risk if you restart. Let's face it, even if you feel your health is deteriorating, it is much better than with a ...
6
I'll focus my answer on why you want to do that, and if it's an effective/safe way to achieve the goals that you are truly seeking (because even if you can increase your bone density, this does not necessarily mean that you achieve the goal you want).
I'll work with 3 scenarios:
I want to hit my opponent harder
I want to feel less pain
I want to prevent ...
6
So you have two qualities you're looking for in a martial art:
It shouldn't put you in a position where you have to really fight your way out (because you have an injured back that won't be able to heal unless you lay off it).
It should be effective against someone who doesn't cooperate - i.e. someone who actually fights back.
The problem, as you saw for ...
6
If you are sparring hard and you get hit, you don't have the time to pause and call your family doctor. I want to know how experts (i.e., those who have serious sparring experience) deal with this.
I'm an advocate for training hard, sometimes really hard. But in doing so you shouldn't lose perspective - there is no point continuing the hard training if it ...
5
This article summarizes it quite nicely with statistics for all injuries in Judo:
http://judoinfo.com/research11.htm
According to that research, there is a 7 in 1000 chance for boys and a 3 in 1000 chance for girls, based on historical statistics, of having a serious injury to the nose.
Caveat being that this is for young Judo competitors 17 years old or ...
5
Taekwondo instructors generally don't have the kind of knowledge you're talking about with regards to identifying muscle imbalance and improving it. For that, you need a personal trainer, someone who's knowledgeable in muscle building and proper exercise form.
Taekwondo itself can develop some muscle imbalance, but in general this should be a pretty minor ...
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